Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Hypocrisy and manipulated outrage in and about the Middle East – A quick overview by John Stewart

Here are two clips from the Daily Show episode on September 17, which had the overall theme of "Actual Democalypse 2012". Both are on-target.

No, neither sketch delivers the full story about the phenomenon it's satirizing, but in both cases they cut through a lot of distracting bullshit in useful and illuminating ways. And taking them in combination could help provoke some useful reflection, too ... along lines suggested in these remarks by Stewart, which I think use mock consternation and apparently superficial witticisms to convey some sly wisdom:

Let me get this straight. All of this destruction and bloodshed was
over this dumb Internet video made by some asshole, and promoted by
the Koran-burning Florida pastor Terry Jones? [....] It’s almost as if certain leaders in that part of the world are
deliberately exploiting whatever they can get their hands on to rile up
the populace for their own political gain.... Hey, wait a
minute! They really are getting the hang on this democracy thing.

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About Me

Jeff Weintraub is a social & political theorist, political sociologist, and democratic socialist who has been teaching most recently at the University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr College. He was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University in 2015-2016 and is currently a Research Associate at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, Bryn Mawr College.
(Also an Affiliated Professor with the University of Haifa in Israel & an opponent of academic blacklists.)